The Dirty Dozen, with David Spaner

Film journalist and critic David Spaner is the author of Shoot It! Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film (Arsenal Pulp Press), which examines Hollywood history, the increasing commercialization of film and the independents who have emerged to fill the artistic void. Included is commentary from the likes of Woody Allen, Atom Egoyan and Miranda July.

Today David gamely wades into the Open Book Dirty Dozen, where writers are invited to share twelve unexpected facts about themselves. Read on to hear from David!

Although I grew up in B.C. and wrote for several Vancouver publications, I was born in Toronto and most of my relatives still live here. (My mother's family immigrated from Russia and she grew up on the streets off of College.)

True to my Toronto roots, I was a huge Leafs fan growing up, but my favourite sport is baseball.

While my writing often celebrates independent film, I also love a lot of old Hollywood movies. (My favourite film movements are the French New Wave of the 1950s and '60s and the tough Warner Bros. pictures of the 1930s and '40s.)

I managed the punk band The Subhumans and staged concerts under the banner Ed Sullivan Presents. (Example: "Ed Sullivan Presents the Dead Kennedys.")

I appear in Susanne Tabata's punk documentary Bloodied but Unbowed.

I was active in the Youth International Party (the Yippies), which believed activism could be fun and funny, and I worked on the New York-based newspaper The Yipster Times.

George Carlin once talked an NYC cop out of giving me a parking ticket.

I have written movie reviews for mainstream and alternative papers and co-founded the Vancouver Film Critics Circle.

I wrote one of the front-page stories for the last issue of The Columbian, a suburban Vancouver daily that published for 122 years.

A good portion of my final year of high school was spent at the University of B.C. — shooting pool at the SUB building.

My musical tastes run the gamut from Frank Sinatra to The Clash.

I signed the Occupy Writers statement in support of the Occupy Movement.

David Spaner has worked as a movie critic, feature writer, reporter and editor for numerous newspapers and magazines. He is the author of Dreaming in the Rain: How Vancouver Became Hollywood North by Northwest. He lives in Vancouver.

We love to talk to amazing writers on Open Book in order to celebrate and spread the word about their newest books. But before writers get to that point, there are years of hard work, revised drafts, and false starts. For all of you out there who are in the early stages of your writing life, we want to share tips, encouragement, and tricks of the trade from some of our favourite writers. So we're launching #WritingTips Mondays, where we will highlight some of the best writing advice on the web. Whether you're working your way through a first draft or a fifth, it's always interesting to hear what fellow writers have to say about the craft.